


O Sleep

by rhetoricalrogue



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Complete, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, post Witcher 3 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 17:08:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4927996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhetoricalrogue/pseuds/rhetoricalrogue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Again, fantastic artwork by <a href="http://mellorianj.tumblr.com/">Mellorianj</a> sparked a plot bunny, especially after the conversation that happened during the appreciation on certain details of a drawing of <a href="http://mellorianj.tumblr.com/post/130210525556/theashenphoenix-mellorianj-sketch-study-of">a sleepy Eskel</a>.</p>
<p>I left the "she" here purposely vague so anyone could picture whomever they wanted in this story, but I think this is an original character that's been rolling around in my head.  I don't know what her name is yet or how these two met, but I'd really like to find out more about her.</p>
    </blockquote>





	O Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> Again, fantastic artwork by [Mellorianj](http://mellorianj.tumblr.com/) sparked a plot bunny, especially after the conversation that happened during the appreciation on certain details of a drawing of [a sleepy Eskel](http://mellorianj.tumblr.com/post/130210525556/theashenphoenix-mellorianj-sketch-study-of).
> 
> I left the "she" here purposely vague so anyone could picture whomever they wanted in this story, but I think this is an original character that's been rolling around in my head. I don't know what her name is yet or how these two met, but I'd really like to find out more about her.

Kaer Morhen was a majestic place. The actual building was made up of stone that was littered with a multitude of scars, some from battles hard-fought, others created by years of repairs. Yet for all its crumbling pieces of masonry and neglected areas, it was strong, sturdy, and capable of defending its inhabitants. There was a sort of wild, rugged beauty that drew her in and she couldn’t help but smile, seeing as those same sentiments could easily be used to describe the men that had called this place home for so long.

She thought that it was good that Eskel had asked her to accompany him to his winter home. _Not for the whole winter, just maybe a month or so. There are repairs that I told Vese…_ His brows had furrowed and his shoulders had hunched in sadness as he had tried to wrap up his invitation all those weeks ago. _I promised him I’d get them done._ While he hadn’t told her everything from his past, the little he had shared had further cemented in her mind what sort of man he was. Eskel finished the things he started and kept his word, no matter how difficult it was or how much it might hurt him to do so.

She was happy for the chance to get out of her little hut and explore, especially now that wintertime was soon to arrive in earnest. Once the snows set in, it was difficult for her to leave her home and after the first month and a half of having no one but her horse to talk to, the small walls often felt as if they were going to close in on her. One of the many seasonal disadvantages to having a secluded home was that it meant a long trek on horseback through deep snowdrifts to reach the nearest town for supplies. She usually bartered clay jars full of salves and herbs meant to combat winter illnesses she had spent time in the spring and summer drying for extra meat from the hunters or preserved fruit and spare dry goods from some of the women to supplement what she had stored up in the warmer months. While she was in town, she got her socializing in by visiting each house and tending to the old, the young, and the sick while checking in on the healthy to make sure that they stayed that way. It worked for everyone and since the townspeople saw her as a valuable asset to their community, they made sure she had a place by the fire at every home should the weather turn for the worse and she was unable to head back that same day.

Yet this solitary fortress with its open air and well-supplied library was like a palace to her. There was a large patch of earth along one of the inner courtyards that must have been a garden at one time or another, but now medicinal herbs grew wild amid native flowers. She had spent many of her days tending to the grounds, alternating between harvesting what plants were ready for drying and clearing planting beds to prepare things for future harvests. She didn’t know if she’d ever have the chance to come here again to see the fruits of her labor, but it pleased her to think that she had in some way added her mark to the place.

When the weather grew too cold to stay out of doors, she spent her days ensconced in the library amid generations’ worth of books. Most of them had to do with the monsters Eskel and other Witchers had been trained to hunt, but someone had taken the time to build up a sizeable selection of fiction. While the training manuals, especially the ones on the monsters that happened to call the region surrounding her home and the tiny village nearby, were informative, she found herself digging through and devouring tales of adventure and intrigue. It looked as if several of the novels had been annotated by a bored reader, their commentary of _highly unlikely: you would be dead if you tried that_ and _Hah! You call this an action scene_ amid other notes along the margins making her smile.

Other days she spent time exploring the laboratory Eskel had shown her. She’d found the formulae written in several volumes of books stored there interesting on an academic level, but seeing as they were deadly for anyone other than Witchers to consume, she left them alone, content to pour over several other handwritten notebooks of more practical applications for Witcher and regular folk alike.

Their days began to grow into a comfortable routine: they were both early risers, which meant that they were either up at dawn or a little after daybreak. They’d have a light breakfast in the kitchens before parting to do the tasks they’d set for themselves for the day. Sometimes Eskel would take a break from making his repairs to sit and talk with her, other times she’d wander from her work and follow the sound of his voice singing an old mountain folk song or cheerful drinking tunes as he toiled away.

There were days where she often wondered how long they would stay. Eskel always spoke as if once he was finished with the repairs he had promised his mentor he’d complete that they would leave, but she had seen him upon multiple occasions abandon the project only to start up on many other items to prolong their stay. She never questioned his motives; he was a quiet man who kept much bottled up inside. He would share his thoughts with her only when he was ready to, if he shared them with her at all.

Every day close to noon, they would meet up again for lunch. When the weather was good, they’d sit in the sun to enjoy their meal. When the weather was poor, they’d again eat in the kitchens, the large room still more cozy and intimate than the even larger hall for just the two of them. After lunch, they’d go back to whatever they had been doing until it grew too cold or too dark to do anything else for the day. Dinner would be followed up by reading by candlelight until one or both of them fell asleep. They had claimed one of the better insulated tower rooms as their own, Eskel explaining that it had always been used as a guest room. It was nice, especially after they had hauled up a bedframe that looked as if it had somehow been thrown over that same room’s balcony – _don’t ask, long story,_ Eskel had told her as he patched up the broken leg as best as he could. After recovering some spare mattresses, pillows and linens from other rooms and adding the furs they had brought with them, it was a very homey room. Oftentimes she’d wake in the morning to find that Eskel had already risen, the sheets next to her still warm from his body. It was his habit to sit out on the balcony with his back to the room to meditate with the sunrise. She never said a word, but she figured he had heard her shift around as she woke up. _You’re staring_ , he’d often accuse without turning around, his tone light and a smile evident in his voice. _Can you blame me_ , she’d reply, leaning on an elbow and purposely letting the blankets fall away from her body. The blast of cold air that greeted her naked skin was completely worth it just to see his eyes darken with desire once he turned around to look at her. The predatory glint of his eyes as he stood up to stalk purposely toward the bed always made her shiver in anticipation. The way his lips quirked into a smug smirk as he traced the skin at her collarbone before travelling lower told her that he knew how he affected her.

Aside from the gardens, the kitchen was another place she had spent a lot of time clearing out. She’d shaken her head the entire time too: men were men, be they Witchers or no. They hadn’t really cared if their cooking space was well organized, nor if the pots they cooked in weren’t covered in soot. After nearly putting in sugar when she needed salt and finding utensils with what looked to be several decades’ worth of meals caked on them, she taken matters into her own hands. It wasn’t long before the hearth had been cleared of ash, the stone floors scrubbed until they gleamed, the well-stocked yet disorderly larder organized, and the pots scrubbed until she could practically see her reflection in them. She’d asked Eskel to make her a small fire outside one day and had placed all the cast iron into it in order to re-season each piece, rubbing everything down with lard once everything was cool enough to handle with the oversized forging mitts she had found close to the armory yet still hot enough for the lard to smoke and sink into the metal to form a protective coating.

Now in the kitchen, she frowned. It was well past noon and the stew she made was bubbling pleasantly away.   Normally Eskel would have already been there, his nose following the scent of the small loaves of freshly baked bread she made every day. Taking the cookpot off the fire, she set the stew on the stone counter near the cooling loaf she had only recently pulled out of the hearth and dusted off her hands.

“Eskel?” She knew that he wasn’t outside; a light snowfall had forced them both inside earlier. She wandered through the rooms of the keep, finding all of them empty. She even went to their bedroom, but it was also unoccupied. She was about to call out to him again when she noticed a door on an upper floor slightly open. She’d never been in this room, not when Eskel had paid it little attention as he breezed past it during his grand tour. _Just an old Witcher’s room_ , he had explained, his palm lingering on the door before he walked away. She carefully pushed the door open: Eskel hadn’t said she _couldn’t_ enter the room after all; and upon looking inside, she leaned against the doorframe and smiled.

He was sitting in a chair next to an unlit brazier similar to the one in their room, a large leather-bound book in his lap. He’d slumped further down the chair’s seat in his sleep, his head at an angle that was sure to give him a crick in the neck if kept in that position for too long and his chin resting against his shoulder. For some reason, he’d unlaced his studded outer coat and the lighter weight jacket he wore underneath, both items gaping open enough for her to see bare skin that peeked out from the neckline of his grey shirt. She crept in the room to get a closer look, surprised that he still hadn’t woken. Normally he was a light sleeper, any little noise usually woke him long enough for him to become alert, determine what the noise was, and then decide if it was dangerous or not. Then he’d pull her closer to him and fall back to sleep with this annoyed little grumble against her shoulder that she found incredibly endearing. She figured that he hadn’t registered the door creaking open or the sound of her footsteps yet because he was so comfortable here: this was his home, one of the only places where he could fully let his guard down. Even as at ease as he was in her own home, he still kept himself on a constant watch for any threats that might pop up.

She got right up to the chair. “Eskel,” she whispered, trying to wake him. His nose scrunched up, but other than that, nothing. She leaned over his chair, bracing her hand against the back of it. “Lunch.” Still not getting a response, she leaned even closer. She’d always been fascinated by his wolf medallion, and she carefully pulled aside his unlaced collar to get a closer look. Unable to help herself, she pressed a light kiss against his chest, her lips catching on both the metal links of the chain around his neck and the soft texture of his shirt.

That got a hitched breath from him as a response. She looked up at him from under her lashes and saw that while he was still asleep, it looked as if he had shifted from a deep slumber to a lighter repose. Grinning against his skin, she shifted her lips upwards, to the shallow hollow at the base of his throat near his collarbone. It was one of her favorite spots on his body and it never failed to elicit a deep, rumbling moan from him when she traced the curve with her tongue.

It didn’t fail now, her name falling from his lips in a still-sleepy murmur. One of his hands rose and tangled into her hair, keeping her in place.

“Hey,” he inelegantly said, blinking the last traces of sleep from his eyes. He stretched in the chair and she could hear his back creak and pop with the motion this close to him. His hand went from her hair down her back, his fingers gently trailing down her spine and back up to the base of her neck in a way that made her shiver. “Tell me you haven’t been here long.”

“No, I just got here. Your Witcher senses haven’t gotten _quite_ that dull yet.” She shifted closer to him, her hand going from the back of his chair to his shoulder as her mouth moved up from his collarbone to nuzzle the tendon that ran along his neck. “Lunch is ready.”

“Already? But it’s only been…” he stopped to let out a hiss as her teeth nibbled at his jaw. “I couldn’t have been asleep that long.” Eskel tilted his head to give her better access. Without warning, he gathered her in his arms and hauled her onto his lap. “I was looking for something for you.”

She traveled to his cheek, whiskers from the day’s growth scratching at her lips. “Oh?”

“You mentioned finding some herbs you didn’t recognize the other day. I knew there was a book around here somewhere describing what kinds of medicinal herbs we grew here and what sorts of treatments could be made out of them. If you want, we can take a look at them later and see if we can figure out what’s growing there. I damn near had to _memorize_ each and every entry… woman, I can’t concentrate.”

Her laugh was husky against his ear. “Perhaps I don’t _want_ you concentrating,” she purred, gasping when his hand traveled up the side of her thigh. “But back to the book?” Said book was currently digging into the back of her knee, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Not when Eskel’s fingers were making such lovely patterns against her side, especially when his palm slid up the outside of her thigh and rested warmly against her hip.

“It really isn’t doing much here in Kaer Morhen except gathering dust on a shelf, so I thought,” he swallowed and pulled back so he could look her in the eye. “I thought you’d might like to take it with us, when we leave.”

Her eyes went wide. “You’re giving me a book? As a gift?” She couldn’t remember the last time someone had given her a gift, especially one tailored to her interests. The idea that he thought about her was enough to make her heart do a funny little flip in her chest, affection making her eyes soften as she gazed up at him.

“It isn’t much, but…yeah.” He looked at her sheepishly. “I wanted to thank you, for coming with me. I told Geralt that I wouldn’t be back, but every morning when I go out to that balcony, all I hear are these kids on the old practice ring, trash talking as they fight. At night when we pass through the main hall, I can see the three of us sitting at one of the tables playing cards and getting shitfaced.” He laughed. “Vesemir would always shake his head at us and then the next morning he’d wake us up extra early and put us to work to _sweat all the alcohol out of you lot._ ” The last was said with a different tone of voice and she could only guess he was doing an imitation of Vesemir. “There’s so many _good_ memories tied to this place to balance out the bad that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to leave, not for good.”

“You miss him, don’t you?”

His arm tightened around her waist. “We all do. He was a good man who taught me everything I know.” He sighed. “He would have liked you.”

“I would have liked to have met him. He must have been something else, if he managed to raise a man like yourself.”

Eskel pulled the book out from under her knee and placed it on the nearby end table. “I am one lucky bastard,” he said, his head dipping down so he could skim his lips across the line of her throat, following the same paths she had teased him with.

She gasped as his nose nudged the delicate skin behind her ear. “You won’t hear any complaints from me.” She laughed when he swung her up in his arms until she was straddling his lap. “Eskel! What about the stew?” Even as she protested, she was tunneling her fingers into his hair to drag him closer to her.

He looked at her in a way that always made her heart race. “We can reheat it later,” he growled, moving in for a kiss.


End file.
